CPAWS 2012 AGM

The 2012 Annual General Meeting for the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society will be held on:

November 10th, 2012 at 1pm

Victoria Park Suites Hotel

377 O’Connor Street

Ottawa, ON

(note change of venue)

As required by our by-laws, you will find below a report from the Nominations Committee on the composition of our National Board of Trustees. A series of proposed changes to our by-laws will be posted with a formal notice of the Annual General Meeting on this website 30 days in advance of the meeting (on or before October 11th, 2012).

Nominations for the CPAWS National Board, November, 2012

The Governance Committee has responsibility for nominating a slate of trustee candidates each year for the CPAWS National Board. It follows policies which ensure that the Board has a combination of relevant skills, experience at the chapter level, and geographic balance. In most cases, trustees are limited to a maximum of six consecutive years of service, and for this reason two returning trustees may only serve one year terms.

In April, the Governance Committee issued a call for candidates. After considering a number of possible candidates, the Governance Committee recommends the re-election of three existing trustees:

For one year terms: Susan Ellis (Alberta), Wayne Sawchuk (BC)

For three year term: Marie-Eve Marchand (Quebec)

Brief biographies of these trustees are available on the CPAWS website.

One existing trustees has decided to step down, Peigi Wilson. In her place, and to fill a vacancy from the previous year, the Governance Committee recommends the election of Cathy Wilkinson and Peter Globensky for terms of three years each.

Cathy Wilkinson has extensive experience with Canadian conservation issues and associated partnerships, including serving as Executive Director of the Canadian Boreal Initiative where she spearheaded the development of the Canadian Boreal Forest Framework and the establishment of the Boreal Leadership Council. She has also worked as a consultant for a wide variety of North American conservation organizations (including the Canadian Committee for IUCN, Ducks Unlimited, the Nature Conservancy of Canada, and The Nature Conservancy), and charitable foundations such as the Pew Charitable Trusts, and several private Canadian grant-makers. Her experience also includes acting as policy advisor to two federal Environment Ministers on the negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol and endangered species legislation.

Peter Globensky has an extensive background in both human rights and environmental consulting, in Canada and internationally; he has served as senior policy advisor to two federal ministers and in the PM's office, chief of staff to the minister for CIDA, and more recently, ED for the Canadian council of ministers of the environment. He is an adjunct professor in political science at Lakehead University and recently retired from consulting work.

While the Governance Committee makes every effort to put together the best slate, our by-laws allow any member who feels that the slate falls short of the needs of CPAWS to submit alternative candidates. Any such nominations should be submitted no later than midnight EDT on Saturday, September 22nd to Éric Hébert-Daly, National Executive Director at eric@cpaws.org. Nominations must include the name of the nominee, their written consent, address, phone number, email, and brief biography.

Any additional nominations will result in a mail-in election, which can be costly in terms of time and the money donated by members. To ensure that donation money is not used wastefully, CPAWS by-laws require that any additional candidate be supported by the signatures of 25 people who were members of CPAWS at the time of this notice.